Dell's Working Capital

Dell’s Working Capital

In 1996, Dell’s net working capital, which is total current assets minus total current liabilities, was in a positive position with $1,018 million. For the past three years from 1994 to 1996, net working capital has been increasing significantly each year. Looking at the information on Table 1, it is very simple to detect this increase. The trend starts at $510 million in 1994 to $718 million in 1995 to $1,018 million in 1996 of net working capital. That makes a 40.78% increase from 1994 to 1995 and a 41.78% increase from 1995 to 1996. This increase can be perceived as either a good or a bad thing depending on the situation at hand. On one hand, it shows a measure of the Dell’s efficiency and its short-term financial health is in a good place. One the other hand, it could indicate that there is too much inventory. In this case, the inventory is never kept at a high volume, so we can say that the increase in working capital is a good thing.

Now, we need to look at the percentage change for each current asset and each current liability in comparison with the increase in the working capital trend. We may notice that each one plays a part in it. One asset that may stick out more than any of the others is the percentage change in inventory. If we take a look at Table 2, we will notice that, for the most part, the percentage change decreased from 1995 to 1996 compared to 1994 to 1995. For inventories, this percentage jumped from 33.18% to 46.42%. This big of a jump may send up some red flags since Dell does not want to hold too much inventory, but that is not want we want to take away from this. In this short time frame, Dell has grown significantly from the previous years. Since Dell is in the growth stage it is not something that should send up red flags. It should be looked at as a good thing because it means that the company is gaining business, which results in needing some more inventories.

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